It was lunch time when I got back to the American Eagle departure area, and I decided to "go native" for lunch. I waited in a long line at a place called Café Versailles whose French name covered up the fact that they served Cuban cuisine. I had a classic Cuban sandwich (basically ham and roast pork with white cheese and garlic placed on a baguette and smashed with a panini press), a cup of Andean blackberry pulp (exactly what it says-and they also had other unusual flavors of fruit puree), and a "café cubano" (a tiny cup of syrupy espresso with almost equal parts coffee and sugar). Of the three only the sandwich was truly good (and it was definitely not worth its $5.29 airport price tag), but I did have an interesting lunch.
The American Eagle lounge at MIA is downstairs, beneath the main concourse. They used to have that same set-up in Minneapolis, before they added the new "A" and "B" concourses that serve the little planes. There are about half a dozen doorways leading out to the tarmac, each guarded by a harried employee. About every five minutes they announce a departure, with boarding continuing for fifteen minutes or so. That means every gate is constantly either boarding, about to board, or just departed.
I still had about half an hour before I could expect them to call my flight, so I sat down in a chrome and black leatherette chair of the type they have at the Mason City airport. Next to me was a woman holding a Canadian passport with a carry-on that seemed as large as she was. I've noticed that particularly on these "regional jets" people often push the limits for carry-ons. They'll bring impossibly large items, knowing they will have to use check them at planeside when they board. With planeside checking, though, they can claim the bulky stuff right when they get off, instead of having to wait for the main baggage to be unloaded. It's a clever concept, though not one I'd probably have the guts to try myself.
Before long they announced that the flight to Memphis was overbooked and began asking for volunteers. I suppose I could have agreed and gotten yet another free trip, but the later flight they would have bumped me onto would have gotten into Memphis after the public transit there stopped running. While I certainly could have taken a cab to my hotel, I never really like the idea of arriving anywhere late at night. Moreover, I had a ticket to a ballgame in Memphis tonight and one of the things I really wanted to see in Memphis was free today only but would cost $10 later in the week. So I just stayed put and let others try for the free tickets.
In the end nobody got a free ticket. They had no shows (something they seem to count on-though why you'd book a flight and not show, I don't know), and it turned out the flight wasn't even full. In fact, I ended up on the side with two seats, with no one next to me.
When they called boarding, we all went through the door and waited out on the hot tarmac for a bus to come and get us. One of my fellow passengers was a middle-aged woman who was apparently scared of flying, about whom I overheard the gate attendant telling the bus driver "she'll need assistance with the boarding process". She clearly didn't want to board, and the stewardess all but lifted her on board and into her seat.
The scared woman ended up a row in front of me, on the side of the airplane with one seat. Behind her was an enormous black woman who had just returned from a cruise. Directly in front of me was a couple consisting of a middle-aged businessman from Miami and a peroxide bimbo from Slovakia he dangled on his arm. The woman spoke like Natasha on Rocky and Bullwinkle (I think everyone from Eastern Europe has the same accent), and her outfit basically consisted of a bra, a towel, and a lot of gaudy jewelry.
We took off uneventfully. Shortly after we were in the air, the scared woman asked if she could have a drink-meaning something with liquor, not the 7-Up everyone else was offered. The stewardess apologized that while beer and wine were usually available (for $5 each) on this flight, there had been a catering mistake and that cart wasn't placed on board. That couple in front of me saved the day for the scared lady, though. The man reached into his white suit coat and pulled out about half a dozen of those single-serving bottles of rum. The stewardess informed him that while it was okay for him to have booze on the airplane, only she (the flight attendant) was allowed to pour it. She got some glasses, and the man shared the rum with the scared woman, his wife, and the elderly couple in front of them. He also offered it to the black lady, who said she didn't drink. Somehow I wasn't included in the little party, but that's probably just as well. The scared woman downed two of those little bottles, mixed with cranberry juice; that should have been enough to take her mind off the flight.
We got into Memphis precisely on time. (This is, after all "America's #1 on-time airport".) I made a quick stop at the restroom and then followed signs for ground transportation. These led past baggage claim and out to a little drive by the parking ramp. There was a bench and a sign to indicate a bus stop, but not much else. Unlike in Miami, Memphis expected you to know what you were doing to take the bus. There was actually a limo parked where the buses were supposed to stop, so I couldn't be entirely sure where I should wait.
I had gone online and printed out a schedule for Memphis transit before leaving on this trip, so I knew a bus was supposed to show up in about twenty minutes. In about five minutes a bus came by, but it wasn't mine. What was weird, though, was that the other bus that stopped her wasn't due until 5 minutes after my bus-and both just come once an hour. My bus showed up a little more than ten minutes after I arrived. Actually, I wasn't 100% certain it was the right bus (its sign still said "AIRPORT" when it arrived, and the driver seemed to speak only Black English), but since the only other bus that stopped here had already come and gone, I figured this had to be mine. Fortunately, I figured right.
The driver seemed very surprised anyone was boarding at the airport, and even more surprised that the person boarding would be a white man. (The whole time I was in Memphis, the only white faces I saw on transit were on the tourist line downtown.) He didn't even pause to leave at the scheduled time; he just set off for downtown ahead of schedule. With service scheduled just once an hour, I'd think they'd pay a bit more attention to the schedule.
I couldn't begin to tell you the route this bus followed. While I never much like taking buses, I don't mind it too much in places like Chicago where each bus basically follows a single street for most of its route. Most of L.A.'s and Miami's buses did that, too. I didn't take any buses in New York, and the main reason was that the routes there were a lot like the one this Memphis bus followed; they just meander all over the place, so people unfamiliar with the city have absolutely no clue where they are. We made at least half a dozen turns just leaving the airport, and we seemed to turn again each time we reached a major intersection. Most of the route was through very residential areas, which seemed a bit strange to me, since I'd think they'd attract more business by running along the commercial streets. You get an idea of just how circuitous the route was from the fact that internet map services say the drive from the airport to downtown should be about fifteen minutes, but the bus takes about an hour to make that trip. The whole time I sat in the very back, feeling more than a bit conspicuous being both the only person who wasn't black and the only person with luggage of any sort.
About halfway from the airport to downtown the driver parked the bus right under a railroad overpass in the middle of a busy street. He left the emergency flashers on as he went into a nearby convenience store. He returned a few minutes later with an enormous tub of pop and some Ho-Hos, and we set off again. Perhaps this is the place he catches up with the schedule. On the other hand, maybe he just wanted a snack.
Miami's buses had nice electronic announcements at every major intersection. Here the driver would occasionally utter something unintelligible into the mike. It was also hard to see anything because the windows of the bus were covered over by an advertisement. Fortunately at one of the turns I could make out the tracks for the Madison Avenue trolley, which I knew would lead right to downtown. I pulled the cord, and a little ways ahead the bus stopped. I got off in the middle of a rather run-down business strip and made my way along an absolutely empty sidewalk to the trolley stop.
In addition to their skeletal bus system, Memphis operates a trolley service along three routes in and near downtown. The Main Street and Riverfront trolleys mostly shuttle tourists, while the Madison Avenue line connects downtown with the medical district east of there. Eventually this line will be extended to the airport, where it will serve passengers and also workers in the terminals and the Federal Express hub located there. When the extension is complete, they'll replace the historic trolley cars they now use with modern light rail vehicles, which will make for a much faster trip. I never saw any of the trolleys carrying much of any passengers, and my first ride was no exception. I boarded the Madison Avenue trolley at the end of the line, and only one other passenger boarded in the two mile stretch between there and downtown. Perhaps when they extend the line so it actually goes somewhere, people might actually take the trolley.
I told the driver (a young black woman) that I wanted a day pass, that is a pass that would be good for riding any of the trolleys (but not any buses, which have a completely different fare structure) all day. It turned out that today this really wasn't a good buy, but the $3 price tag hardly broke me. She had me put my money in a fare box at the center of the car, and she searched through some bags looking for a pass. She never did find one, but eventually she was able to flag down a trolley heading the opposite direction and get a pass from that car's driver.
The Madison Avenue trolley runs up and down hills east of downtown Memphis. Just west of the skuzzy business district where I had boarded is the Medical District, which until quite recently was home to several major hospitals. Two of these recently closed in mergers, and the largest remaining facility (the famous St. Jude's Children's Hospital) is actually quite a ways from the trolley. It was weird passing the empty shells of what used to be major institutions. West of the medical district there is a rather upscale residential area that consists of newly constructed apartments built to look like old warehouses. In the heart of this area is the ballpark I would be visiting tonight. Just west of there the line terminates in the heart of this rather dilapidated old river town.
The trolley driver could tell quite easily that I was a tourist, so when we reached the end of the line, she asked me what hotel I was headed for. I said the Sleep Inn, and she told me to transfer to the Main Street trolley and gave vague directions from there. I knew from the hotel's website that the Main Street trolley was supposed to stop right outside the hotel, so that seemed right. I followed her directions and ended up going past my destination, ending up at a Comfort Inn (same chain, but different hotel) north of where I wanted to be. I walked back down Main Street all the way to Madison, never noticing a Sleep Inn anywhere. Then I got out the hotel map I had printed out and noted the cross street. What they didn't say was that the entrance to the hotel was actually on that cross street; it was only a back door that faced onto Main (even though Main was the hotel's address). I eventually found it and went inside.
A rather unhelpful woman at the desk acknowledged that I had a reservation, but she told me I couldn't check in because there were no rooms available. It was after 3pm now, well past their designated check-in time. I asked if she could assign a different type of room or if I could even leave my bags and come back when the one I had reserved was available, but somehow both of those were impossible too. She suggested I have coffee while I waited for my room to be made up. I got a cup from the breakfast bar, found the most prominent place I could to sit, and proceeded to drink it while glaring at her. I glared at her for about half an hour, and eventually she contacted the maid. It wouldn't surprise me if the room had actually been ready for some time, but the maid just hadn't turned in her list of completed rooms. Seconds after getting the OK from the maid, I was checked in. I quickly made my way up to a tiny, but pleasant room on the second floor that overlooked the trolley stop outside.
I left my bag and almost immediately set out again. As I walked out the back door of the hotel I just missed a southbound trolley, so I ended up walking south about a mile to my destination, the National Civil Rights Museum. This museum is located in and around the old Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King was shot. Admission is free here on Monday afternoons, so I was able to experience a top-notch museum without spending a dime.
The museum has several galleries that do a good job of tracing the complete history of civil rights. They don't just focus on black Americans, but other minority groups and the rights of people around the world. Among the more interesting exhibits was a replica of the bus where Rosa Parks sat all those years ago. There's a statue of Parks inside the bus, so you can literally go in and sit down next to her.
Perhaps most moving is the display inside the motel itself. They have the room where King stayed restored as it would have been the day he died--right down to toiletries on the counter and a tray with items on it from a room service dinner. It looks, of course, like a motel room. In fact, it looks a lot like the rooms in many Super 8's. There was certainly nothing luxurious about the place (it was not nearly so nice as any of the hotels where I was staying on this trip), but it was clean and pleasant. Segregation had been outlawed at the time Dr. King stayed here, but he chose this motel because it was built by blacks in the days when black people couldn't stay at the nicer downtown hotels and it was still was operated by a black family in 1968.
Outside the place looks a lot like any other old motel. The doors (which face right out onto the parking lot) are painted the same aqua color you'd see in old Motel 6's all over America. There's a big '60s style sign of the type you might expect at any ma 'n' pa motel. Just two things tell you there's something else here. First, the parking lot is filled with period cars. More important, they've got a wreath hanging from the balcony where Dr. King was shot, a fitting memorial in an unusual location.
Across the street from the Lorraine they've also restored the boarding house where James Earl Ray was staying at the time of the killing and from which the fatal shot was apparently fired. A fascinating gallery in the boarding house discusses the many conspiracy theories that have been put forward with regard to the assassination, dwelling most on the possibility the FBI might have been involved. While they don't entirely discount any of the theories, they note that there have been dozens of investigations in this case, starting in the '60s and continuing to the present day. None of them has been able to uncover anything more than the shakiest shreds of evidence that anyone other than James Earl Ray was involved in the shooting.
I once heard Walter Cronkite discussing both the murders of both Dr. King and John Kennedy and the many conspiracy theories that have been proposed in both cases. Cronkite summed it up by saying "secrets that big just aren't that easy to keep". If anyone else were involved in either of the cases, he noted, surely someone would have talked at some point in the last forty years. Given that no one has, America's most trusted man is inclined to accept the official verdicts in both cases-and so am I.
Outside the National Civil Rights Museum a lone woman was sitting under an umbrella quietly protesting and calling for visitors to boycott the museum. Her sign complained that millions of dollars had been spent on the James Earl Ray exhibit (which apparently had just opened), but "there's nothing for the poor". I'm not sure why a museum should be expected to give anything to the poor. Presumably it's a non-profit organization itself, and I'm sure its existence has provided jobs for local people who otherwise might be without them. I pondered just what the woman's problem with the place was as I made my way back to a nearby trolley stop.
It was interesting that the crowd at the museum was quite multiracial, one of the few places in Memphis where that was true. Memphis is an overwhelmingly black city. They're trying hard to restore its downtown area as a place suburban and visiting whites can spend their money, but those whites don't stop on their way downtown, and the local blacks don't go downtown except to work in service jobs. The civil rights museum attracts tourists of all races, and it was good to see integration at work there-if not in the city as a whole.
I took the Main Street trolley back to the hotel and showered. Then I took the Madison Avenue trolley eastward to Autozone Park, the home of AAA baseball's Memphis Redbirds. The trolley stops right outside the park, but unfortunately there isn't an entrance anywhere remotely nearby. I had to circle three sides of the place before I finally found a gate I could use.
Inside the park is really quite nice, a smaller version of the nice "retro-parks" that are proliferating in all the big league towns. They also have an excellent variety of food. In addition to a hot dog, I had an enormous serving of barbecue nachos. This strange product combines tortilla chips and fspicy cheese with shredded meat and barbecue sauce. It's an odd combination of flavors, but they went surprisingly well together. The only problem was that it's all but impossible to eat as finger food and the stand serving it had no forks. I made do, though, and finished every bite.
The rather small crowd arrived late and left early. For most of the game I had an entire row to myself. Those people who were here didn't seem very into the game. Instead they had come primarily to drink cup after enormous cup of beer. I can't say I really blamed the people who didn't pay close attention to the playing field. This was really a rather dull game. ... I chose to leave at the seventh inning stretch. It amused me to hear them play the Budweiser song ("Here Comes the King") at the stretch. This is a Cardinals affiliate, though, so I suppose it's not unlike playing "Roll Out the Barrel" in Beloit (...which, by the way, makes me wonder if they still do that now that the Snappers are affiliated with the Twins).
There was no trolley anywhere in sight on Madison Avenue, so I walked back to the hotel. While I got there safely, I must say that downtown Memphis was definitely not a place I felt comfortable at night. It's very rough, and I felt more than a little uncomfortable. I was very glad to get back to the Sleep Inn, where I could just peer out at it from my window rather than experiencing the place up close and personal.
Today I spent a leisurely day in Memphis. I got up in slow motion and just sort of wandered from place to place. There's not a lot of "must see" attractions here (save Graceland, which was far pricier than I wanted to pay), but I had a pleasant day nonetheless.
Breakfast at the Sleep Inn was minimal. Besides the bagel bar you'd find at almost every motel these days, they had frozen microwave pancakes--not something I cared to sample.
I began my day by walking north along Main Street, mostly just to see what was there. The back of my hotel faced out onto Court Square. This is a nicely landscaped little park that would be lovely if it weren't overrun by beggars. North of there are a number of government buildings that date to the '40s and '50s. They have very little personality, but they are among the tallest buildings in a fairly low-rise city. In front of city hall is an interesting little plaza with numerous triangle-shaped fountains that seem to come on randomly. North of there is the Memphis Convention Center and a Marriott Hotel, which are connected by the city's only skywalk. Beyond there is the so-called North Main Arts District-one of those places that is trying to gentrify, but hasn't made it yet. A couple of coffee bars and an expensive Italian restaurant don't do much to rescue a neighborhood that's mostly boarded up warehouses and parking lots surrounded by razor wire.
North Main was an obvious place to turn back, since beyond there was public housing. I walked back to the trolley stop by the convention center and caught the next car. This was part of the Riverside line. The Riverside streetcar makes a counterclockwise loop, heading north on Main Street, turning westward in the "arts district", and then heading on an old railroad right-of-way a long the Mississippi. South of downtown (near the Memphis Amtrak station), it turns back east and heads back up Main Street. The Main Street trolley provides both northbound and southbound service on Main, so there are always twice as many cars headed north as south.
I again tried to buy a day pass, and once again I had a driver who had none in his vehicle. He stopped a southbound Main Street car and got one for me. You'd think on a touristy route like this that such passes would be standard. The trolley turned west next to the main bus mixmaster and squeezed into an impossibly small passage next to a drive-through bank. We then went rapidly downhill and made a tight turn in front of the parking lot of the Pyramid. This building, a glass-fronted structure shaped to honor that other place called Memphis is also a sports arena but also hosts conventions and exhibitions. No one would ever confuse it with a historic structure; instead it looks a lot like the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas.
I got off the trolley in front of the Amtrak station, where it lays up to catch up with the schedule (unlike the bus I'd taken earlier). We would have about a ten-minute wait, so it seemed an appropriate place to get off. I walked back west through a truly gentrified area of warehouses and factories that had been converted to loft apartments and expensive shops. This is one of the few places in Memphis where white people live, and just about the only place black people don't live. It's not that they are specifically segregated away, but the price (studios starting at $1,750/month) would tend to exclude most people of any race. I wondered just what the people who live here did to pay their rent, since today they didn't seem to be doing much of anything. Most of them seemed to be walking their dogs or sitting in coffee bars sipping lattes and munching on scones.
Beyond the enclave of gentrification lies the mighty Mississippi, which I found much more interesting. They have two nice trails along the river, one in the floodplain right next to the river (actually well above water level in this drought year) and the other about halfway up the bluff. I walked at riverside about halfway back to the Pyramid then went up to the other path and walked back. The riverfront here used to be industrial, but has been restored to parkland. It's not really beautiful and certainly not spectacular, but it is rather pleasant. While it was beastly hot, I still had a nice walk.
I made my way back to the Amtrak station, but there was no trolley anywhere in sight, so I headed east to Main Street and waited a few blocks north, just in front of the civil rights museum. Before long a Main Street Trolley pulled up, and I took that car back to the hotel.
It was already late morning, but my room was not made up. Indeed, it appeared there weren't any maids anywhere in the building yet. What there were was baseball players. I was surprised to find that this was actually the visiting team hotel for Autozone Park. That wasn't why I chose the place (and if my friend were playing and I knew it was the team hotel, I'd have probably avoided it). ... It was sort of fun to know the guys were staying there, though.
As I had done so often in Miami, I showered and dried off my sweaty clothes-this time using both the iron and the hair dryer. Then I set off again. I walked down to Madison Street and caught a trolley eastbound to Cleveland Avenue. The corner of Cleveland and Madison was less than promising (mostly home to the neighborhood unemployment office), but two blocks south of there was a business strip with a wide variety of choices for lunch. I chose Krystal, the southern institution that's basically a knock-off of White Castle. Then I redeemed a bit more of the Garrigan scrip for dessert at a nearby Burger King. (This time the counter girl didn't even blink at accepting gift certificates.) I walked about a mile westward down the strip to Pauline Avenue and then headed back north to the trolley. I went back to the hotel to dry off again, surprised to find that there were still no maids anywhere around.
I caught a glimpse of the Nashville Sounds team bus leaving for the park as I headed back out around 2pm. (That's a pretty typical departure time for a 7:00 game; baseball is more of a full-time job than most people think.) I caught the Main Street trolley and headed south to Peabody Place, which is right in the heart of "tourist central" for Memphis. Named after the historic Peabody Hotel, the main thing around here these days is a snooty mall with remarkably little in it. I actually spent quite a bit of money here, entirely on books. They had a Tower Records store here that mostly sold music and movies, but had a surprisingly interesting book selection.
I also tried to get a shopping bag. As I always do, I had acquired more stuff than would comfortably fit in my carry-on. They had sturdy plastic shopping bags for sale from a machine for $.50 each. I put in two quarters, but the machine wouldn't unlock, so I guess I just made the proprietors of Peabody Place four bits richer.
Just south of Peabody Place is Beale Street, supposedly the birthplace of the blues. They've really developed this in recent years. I remember stopping in Memphis on my first trip south back in 1990. At that Beale Street was absolutely dead by day and looked like it would probably be rather creepy at night (not unlike most of the rest of Memphis). Now it's got a Hard Rock Café and all the other accoutrements of tourist destinations everywhere. Beale Street caters to families by day and wealthy young people by night. It was crawling with bratty children this afternoon. I snapped a couple of obligatory pictures and made my way back to the trolley.
I next took the Madison trolley to the end of the line and then walked quite a ways east of there. The neighborhood here reminded me a lot of residential New York. It looked trashy, but probably wasn't really all that bad. It was basically a middle class black urban neighborhood. I eventually made my way to a Piggly Wiggly supermarket that served the area. I picked up several bags of Community Coffee, the New Orleans chicory blend I learned to love in my grad school days. The coffee costs a fortune in the French Quarter, but it's just the everyday coffee everybody drinks in Louisiana, Mississippi, and the other nearby states (including Tennessee). The same pound bag that goes for $8 on Bourbon Street costs about $3.50 at Piggly Wiggly. (As a side note, after Hurricane Katrina diaspora Community started selling their product in the northern states. I saw it for sale at a Jewel store in Chicago after Thanksgiving-priced higher than in Memphis but lower than the New Orleans tourist prices.)
When I got back to the hotel there was finally a maid in my hallway, though she hadn't done anything with my room yet. I felt like suggesting to her that she start at my end of the hall, since the baseball players would probably not be back until midnight. She had her system, though, and I certainly wasn't going to interfere.
After drying off yet again (the temperature supposedly reached 102o this afternoon), I set off walking once more. I walked up to the Civic Center area (those government buildings), where probably half a dozen TV trucks were parked among the triangular fountains. Reporters were in front of those trucks, recording stories for their evening newscasts. I may have been in the background of a shot as I stood there waiting for the trolley. The reporters were there to cover an announcement the mayor was making that the city and county (which are apparently the same jurisdiction in Memphis) were about to run out of money. I gather from news articles that this is a fairly common occurrence in Memphis. ...
I took a Riverfront trolley to a stop by a state welcome center just south of the Pyramid. ... They have an aerial tramway that leads from here to Mud Island, a combination residential area and amusement park in the middle of the river. I passed on the pricey tram ride bud did have some more fun exploring the waterfront.
After hiking some more I caught another trolley. The only other passengers were an elderly couple that was asking directions to various points of interest. The driver didn't seem terribly informed about anything, and when I answered the couple's questions, they thought I was a local. (I doubt anyone local ever takes the Riverfront trolley.) One of the things they were trying to find were casinos. The driver was able to confirm what I was pretty certain of: there aren't any casinos in Memphis. In fact the nearest casinos would be about half an hour south in Tunica, Mississippi. That didn't phase the couple, and I was able to give them very specific directions to Tunica, having driven between there and Memphis several times before (though never for the purpose of gambling--indeed the casinos didn't even exist until after my days in Mississippi were over).
I got off back at Peabody Place and spent a while walking around the east end of downtown Memphis. This area is a bit more interesting than Main Street, but still not really anything special. It reminded me of what downtown Burlington was thirty years ago. It's pretty sad when a city of half a million has the same downtown as a city of 30,000.
I got back to the hotel and was pleased to find my room was finally done. I then set off one more time, this time hoping to get a bag into which I could expand my stuff. There were only two stores in all of downtown that were very promising. I first tried Family Dollar (that Family Dollar is the only real department store in downtown Memphis tells you something). They had no luggage or backpacks there, but I did find a bath towel I liked that was being closed out for $1.50. Next I went to an old, grungy Walgreen's. Even the inner city Chicago stores I'd been to didn't have quite the feel of this particular Walgreen's. It had the "charm" (i.e. missing tile, warped floors, peeling paint, etc.) of the old Hoaglin's variety store in Mt. Pleasant-which has now been closed for more than a quarter century. The aisles were crammed more tightly than Family Dollar, and there were security cameras everywhere. They did, however, have quite a large selection of luggage. I selected what was basically a soft-sided briefcase that fit my purposes nicely.
I left my purchases back at the hotel and then took the trolley one more time, heading back to the Krystal on Cleveland. On the way back the only other passenger was an elderly woman who talked endlessly with the driver about how unsafe the neighborhood was. While I never personally had any problems, I doubt she's exaggerating much. It was nearly dark when I got back to the hotel, and I was more than happy to just stay in my room for the night.
I intended to sleep in this morning, so--needless to say--I was up quite early. The breakfast was identical to yesterday's uninspired offerings, so I just had some coffee and then made a brief walk around the neighborhood. I was intrigued to see a state historical marker sign just north of my hotel that marked the spot of the very first Piggly Wiggly store, which is noteworthy not just in that chain's history, but also because it was the first self-service grocery store anywhere. Given the street layout and the location of that sign, at least part of the Sleep Inn (including my room) was almost certainly built on the original Piggly Wiggly lot.
While it was hours before my flight back to Des Moines would leave, there was nothing at all to keep me in downtown Memphis. I figured I might as well make my way to the airport. I walked west on the side street onto which the Sleep Inn faced to its corner at Front Street. I waited at a bus stop as several buses I didn't want passed and eventually boarded Bus 2-A, whose destination read "AIRPORT".
This bus had no advertising on its windows, so it was a lot easier to see the route we were taking. The bus first headed north on Front Street, past the back end of the convention center. A little ways south of the Pyramid we turned east and headed for North End station, the big bus mixmaster I had walked past yesterday. We then wandered through the northeast part of downtown, whose most significant feature appeared to be the Shelby County Jail. A long line of people waited out front at the visitors' entrance. We then passed the enormous St. Jude's Hospital complex and headed south through the medical district. We made our way back to Madison Street, where I saw the easternmost trolley station where I had left the bus the other day. Then we roughly re-traced the route I had taken coming into Memphis ("roughly" because many of the streets here are one-ways) and ended up back at the airport.
I checked in and checked my luggage in no time, and there was no line at all at security. Once I was in the secure part of MEM, I still had four hours to kill. I spent some of the time reading and some of it walking literally every concourse in the airport. I was amazed at just how deserted this enormous airport was. They seem to schedule the departures in waves here, and I was definitely between waves. Every concourse had a flight scheduled, but every one of them left sometime between 1 and 3pm. At 10am there was absolutely nothing going on here. It's really not a boring airport, though. They have a good variety of shops and restaurants, and things are mostly pretty user-friendly. I'd definitely rank MEM ahead of Miami's airport.
I had a cinnamon roll and coffee from a stand next to Gate C-5, the gate from which my flight was scheduled to leave. I finished the T-shirt book and read a large part of a linguistics book (a sequel to The Story of English) I had picked up at Tower Records. I also read the Memphis Commercial Appeal almost in its entirety-all before lunchtime. My lunch was at an Italian restaurant in the terminal, where I had some very spicy lasagna and what they called "Italian wedding soup" (delicious broth with tiny pieces of pasta in it). I then went back to the gate and read some more of the linguistics book.
Eventually it was time for the flight to board. I hate to say it, but you could tell the crowd on this flight was going to Iowa. I'm very proud of my state, but there was something very "Iowa" about the dumpy overweight middle-aged white people on this plane. I, of course, was one of them, so I guess I was on the correct flight.
The flight was uneventful. We landed in Des Moines early but had to wait for another plane to leave Northwest's only gate at the airport. I made my way to baggage claim and was pleased to find my bag was the very first one on the carousel. I then took the bus back to the remote parking lot. The driver asked me "Where are you parked?", a question I was not prepared to answer. I knew where I was in relation to where the original driver had picked me up, but not in relation to where we were when this guy asked me. Not really knowing how to respond, I said "this will be fine" , left the bus, and the proceeded to bumble around in the parking lot for quite a while before finally finding my car.
Miracle of miracles, my car started right up. Apparently it hadn't rained much after that first day. (The moisture problem was fixed shortly after this trip. It had a different starting problem the weekend before I'm writing this, but hopefully that's also fixed now.) I had an uneventful ride home and quickly went off to bed-since tomorrow I'd be getting back into the groove of another busy school year.